Bristol Mayor: Can Marvin Rees make history?

The crowds patiently queued for the hottest political ticket in Bristol on Tuesday night, eager to attend the Mayoral Hustings debate planned by BSWN (Black South West Network) and the organisation ‘Up Our Street’.

The theme of the event was tackling race inequality, and the 250 packed audience crammed into the town’s City Academy school, based in the largely BME area of Redfield.

The organisers took the unprecedented decision to allow every Mayoral candidate a seat at the hustings debate. That meant an astonishing 11 candidates, but thanks to the brilliantly organised and chaired event it worked fantastically.

One of the reasons it worked well was due to the vast diversity of views, way beyond the ‘usual political suspects’, that occurs when hustings only have three or four candidates.

The overall winner of the debate was the city’s diverse audience, who were given voting buttons which allowed them to instantly feed in their political priorities and views about the candidates. In regards to the issues, tackling institutional racism, and in particular education and job were the audience’s main priorities. But the political winner by a landslide was Marvin Rees, who won 57% of the vote. His nearest rival the sitting Mayor George Ferguson could only muster 23%.

On a night of high energy and even higher stakes, Rees set out his stall as the man destined to make history as Bristol’s first directly elected Mayor of African/Caribbean descent. In fact, if he does get elected he’ll make national and European history by holding the top political office of any major European city.

But he didn’t have things all his own way. Many of the smaller independent candidates wonderfully articulated the city's gross inequalities, particularly when it comes to education.

Christine Townsend, for example, highlighted the gross inequality in the city, citing schools such as Colston Girls school- named after the notorious Edward Colston, the slave trader- which along with the other predominantly white schools, have almost no students receiving free school meals, and diversity levels that barely surpass 5%. Yet the City’s Academy - where the event was held - has over 50% diversity and more that 25% of students on free school meals. Townsend pointed out that it was the only school in the city that was under OSFTED’s special measures for failing its students.

For Marvin Rees, his big plan was to transform the city through housing, education and jobs.

The audience very much warmed to him and his ideas. The biggest loser on the night was the Mayor Ferguson, the former Lib dem councillor, but now independent Mayor. He was accused of destroying the Bristol Carnival, ignoring BME issues and funding multi-million pound pet projects, whilst stopping funding for places such as the historical Malcolm X centre in St Pauls.

That Marvin Rees clearly won on the night was clear, but if he is to win the biggest fight of his life, he is going to need a small army of activists to get Bristolians, many of whom live in those poor BME areas, to get people registered by April 18th - and to get the vote out.

Well done to the organisers, and to Marvin.

History is there for the taking.

Simon Woolley